I have seen the F-18 APU switch issue brought up once or twice. Is there anyway that switch can be fixed so those of us purists that want to start up an F-18 can do that? I landed on the carrier did a shutdown and brought the apu offline. If not fixing the APU switch can it be ground power connected so that I can attempt an actual restart?
Hi @Ragamuffin564
I have not tried this myself but you could see what happens if you change the GROUND_POWER_UNIT service in the aircraft.cfg file from 0 to 1.
From the SDK:
[SERVICES]
This section details which Airport Services can be available for this aircraft. Each line in this section contains a name of a service, followed by= 1to mark it as available, or= 0to make it unsuitable for the aircraft. Any unspecified service is considered unavailable (0) by default."
To do this:
- Navigate to: >Your MSFS Install Path<\Microsoft Flight Simulator\Packages\Official\OneStore\asobo-aircraft-fa18e\SimObjects\Airplanes\Asobo_FA18E\aircraft.cfg
- Make a backup of the file!
- Open the file and scroll down to the [SERVICES] section
- Change “GROUND_POWER_UNIT =0” to “GROUND_POWER_UNIT =1”
- Start MSFS & see if that works. Note: This will not animate any APU switch in the cockpit, though.
- If it does not work or has unintended consequences, exit the sim & replace the modified file with the backup.
Fingers crossed - hope this works for you 
Have you seen that post ?, you may want also to participate there:
That’s the thing the switch does not enable for 60 seconds. It turns on for 5 seconds and turns back off without APU light-off and the APU ready light does not turn on. If it followed the standard sequence you are correct the APU would light off and the APU switch would no longer be needed in the start-up sequence.
I will give this a try.
So I did update the systems.cfg. I made the APU PSI 3000 in multiple places that I saw it and I adjusted the Hydraulic max on it from 18 to 45 and it seems to work now even after I did a full shutdown on-board an aircraft carrier.
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